


Age is But a Number

by flamethrower



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, GFY, M/M, Multi, Other, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has companions so he won't be left alone with his own thoughts.  Companions, however, actually need sleep, so there goes <i>that</i> idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Age is But a Number

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place before the first River Song arc of Season 5. (Originally written that year.)

The Doctor said he was over nine hundred years old, or nine hundred three, or nine hundred seven, depending on the date in question and whatever he’d been up to at the time.  Nine hundred was an impressive-sounding number, one that could only be surpassed by the Face of Boe.  If the legends were true, that was.  (He sincerely hoped that they weren’t, because Jack had only just hit the twenty century mark and was already worn down by time.  He wanted better things for his occasional companion than that.)

The fact of the matter was that the Doctor had no idea how old he really was.  Not anymore.  He couldn’t blame his travels, or even the TARDIS for such a thing.  Not that he _would_ blame the old girl, but all the people that he traveled with found it easy to lose track of time while onboard.  Not him, though – he always knew what time it was, wherever he was.  All he had to do was cock his head a certain way and listen. 

This version of himself had it much easier than his ninth body, when he’d just floundered his way out of the burning detritus of the Time War and couldn’t hear a _thing_.

No, it was entirely his own fault that he had no idea how old he was, but that was because he kept giving years of his life away.  If he’d ever been caught, oh, there would have been hell to pay, doing what he’d done.  Now, Gallifrey was gone, and no one knew that he’d been naughty but himself, and sometimes that filled him with supreme loneliness.  Other days it created a great weight that seemed to settle between his shoulder blades.  A Time Lord victorious?  Fah.  Some days he’d give anything for Romana to stick her finger in his face and tell him off.

Gallifrey had served a purpose; the Time Lords had existed for a reason.  The Time Agency, that motley collection of aliens and humans, had tried their best to fill the void left in the wake of the Time War.  Even they hadn’t lasted more than a few millennia, but at least during those two thousand years, the Agency had done their best to repair a few of the holes that he’d missed.  Some days he was so very tired of trying to fill the gaps in the fabric of the universe all by himself. 

Amy was fantastic at helping him, capable of beautiful leaps of logic, but Amy was running from something.  Long experience told him that she’d have to stop running at some point, and quite likely he’d be alone again.

Martha had been so wounded by the very idea of time needing these repairs, but she’d done her best.  She was a doctor, and stitching wounds was part of her training.  Then the Master had come to Earth, and Martha had gotten along with the getting out.  One day, though, he was going to remember to ask her:  Why _Mickey?_

Of all of his companions since Gallifrey’s fall, Rose and Jack had been the best at it, at understanding what he had to do.  It had helped that Jack was a former Time Agent; he knew why things needed plugging and where the plug had to go.  Rose, for all she claimed to be just a shop girl, had been _brilliant_ at it.  She’d never have been able to swallow the Vortex whole if the talent weren’t innate.

Bugger all, here he was with a brand new face and a new version of his ridiculous Time Lord hair and he still missed Rose Tyler like he was missing a limb.

Maybe he should wake Amy up.  He was going to wear a hole in the library carpeting at this rate, and only over a simple matter of age.  If she were awake, they could go visit any number of places and he wouldn’t have to think such ridiculous thoughts. He forced himself to sit down, to consider things logically.  Or as logically as he could do such things, lately.  (And the fish sticks, what was up with the _fish sticks?_ )

Jamie had been the first, dear Jamie McCrimmon and his Scots sensibilities and that kilt and Ben ogling said kilt at every given opportunity.  Polly never noticed, but then, Polly had been far more interested in the TARDIS than Ben or Jamie, who’d kept disappearing at odd moments for a shag.  Ben and Polly had never found out that Jamie had been shot, killed during one of their excursions, and the Doctor just couldn’t let him go.  He’d poured part of himself into the Scotsman’s mind, and the timey-whimey stuff that made up his essence had brought Jamie around, and neither of them talked of it, ever.  Jamie was forced by the tribunal to go home, sans memories, not long after.  Probably found a nice Scots lad, or lass (or both) and a cottage by the cliffs.  Jamie had always been the sensible sort.

He lied to Victoria, once, and said that he couldn’t really remember his family unless he thought hard about it.  Not true; he remembered them with such intensity that it made his hearts burn with grief for the distance, time and space that had passed since they had last been together, before he’d stolen the TARDIS and took Susan with him to the stars.  This was right before Victoria decided to get herself snacked on by a Cyberman relic, and he’d spilled more of his essence and brought her back and then smacked her hand and told her not to pick up any more strange artifacts to cart around in her handbag. 

It wasn’t really a good year in terms of dead Companions, but at least he’d been right there and made sure they didn’t stay dead.  He would have made sure Jack hadn’t stayed dead, brave, stubborn, libidinous sort that he was, but then… well.  Rose and the Vortex happened, and now there was always a fixed point in his head that never bloody moved.

He hadn’t dumped Sarah Jane in Aberdeen (whoops) and forgotten to return for her so much as he’d run back towards Gallifrey with a guilty heart and a splitting headache from that little summons.  She’d died, he’d brought her back, and she didn’t claim to remember it but she’d never been quite the same afterwards, either.  Some part of her subconscious had lost the taste for travel.  He’d done the best thing, the hardest thing, and when she whined about wanting to go home and have a proper wash, he took her there (sort of) and never went back.

Then there was the incident with Ace and the nitroglycerine. 

“Hmm.  Upon reflection, I’m the bloody fountain of youth,” he muttered.  “Or is that the Grail cup?  Except the Grail wasn’t a cup - that was a blatant abuse of language, but whoever’s heard of a ladder that will make you immortal?” 

This thought made him deeply unhappy.  The Doctor sank into a chair that hadn’t been there a few seconds ago and proceeded to have a good long sulk. 

That was how Amy found him a few hours later.  She stood in front of him, giving him that speculative, curious, annoyed look he’d first seen on her face when she was a child and scared of a crack in her wall.  “What in the world are you up to, then?” she asked.

“I don’t know how old I am,” he said, and even to his ears it was one of the more ridiculous statements he’d ever made, right up there with ‘Who’s the man?’  And there’d been another one, right before that sword fight on Christmas Day… what had he said?

“Earth to Time Lord,” Amy said, waving her hand in front of his eyes.  “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you just make something up?”

“Well, I already did that,” he said.  “Nine hundred is a perfectly respectable round number.”

“Then everything’s fine.  Let’s go someplace fun,” Amy said, putting her hands on her hips.  “I didn’t sit around waiting for you to come back for fourteen years just to keep sitting in this box.”

He frowned at her.  “Do I need to smash in your garden shed again?”

“Go ahead,” she said, grinning.  “I bought liability after the last time.  I could use the extra bit of cash.”

“What do you put on the forms?” he wanted to know, standing up.  “Shed smashed by alien Police Box?”

“It’s a small village with a well-stocked pub,” she retorted happily.  “Plenty of local gents up to drunken shenanigans and I just didn’t get a good look at them, officer, so sorry.”

This was what he needed, a distraction.  Amy was good at distracting him from dwelling on subjects like himself, which was good, because he didn’t much care for it.  “Say ‘shenanigans’ again, Amy,” he said, leading the way out of the library.

“Why?”

“Hmm.  I think I like that word.  Shenanigans,” he repeated, rolling it off his tongue.  “Oh yes, sort of like fish sticks, that one.”

“I hope you like redheads, too,” Amy muttered.

“Sorry, what was that?” he asked, trying really hard to pretend that he hadn’t heard what he was certain she’d said.  Oh, no, he did not need that, thank you _very_ much, not this time, _I’ve known you since you were seven._

“Nothing!”

“All right then,” the Doctor said, rubbing his hands together before wrapping his fingers around the nearest control valve.  “I know the perfect place!  We’ll visit a museum."


End file.
